It's not big data that discriminates – it's the people that use it

Data can't be racist or sexist, but the way it is used can help reinforce discrimination. The internet means more data is collected about us than ever before and it is used to make automatic decisions that can hugely affect our lives, from our credit scores to our employment opportunities. If that data reflects unfair social biases against sensitive attributes, such as our race or gender, the conclusions drawn from that data might also be based on those biases. But this era of "big data" doesn't need to to entrench inequality in this way. If we build smarter algorithms to analyse our information and ensure we're aware of how discrimination and injustice may be at work, we can actually use big data to counter our human prejudices. This kind of problem can arise when computer models are used to make predictions in areas such as insurance, financial loans and policing.